they must really scale after 20 then. mine at lvl 20 are doing 598-770 with 31 hits. what’s yours doing for reference?
my reg wolves do 1000
dire wolves 1500-1700
bear 4 to 4.5 k
I feel if you could get more than 5 ravens max they would be more useful. Again they are improved for sure but they’re not quite “there yet”
mine doing 2.1k with 31 lvl with wolves doing 1k, they are insane actually, better to invest these cause as i said above, they dont colide, they dont get dmg, is a must have imo. at least in my build 
so, they do scale quite a bit after 20 then. I will put my 91-99lvl points into ravens then.
I wasn’t too impressed with their damage up to 20 but if they crank up like that after 20 that is very nice. Thanks for input
Glad to hear you are giving the ravens a try.
I was quite against the new ravens when the PTR was running. Now I just love them (how ironic).
If you cast raven on an empty spot, it will attack the closest target, good for blinding dangerous mobs. If you cast it on a target, all other ravens will come to that target as well (as Zenji pointed out before), good at killing.
That second point is a game changer. Considering the ravens can not be slowed, knocked back, stunned, decrepified, weakened, can gang on a single target like the ghosts, and they can fly pass mobs and your other minions, they are basically your most reliable and highest damage on demand.
This is 100% true; although as Wind Druid I don’t use them as damage source, but as tactical option to blind annoying enemies out of my range.
The only downside of Ravens in 2.4 is they worn off very quickly due to their more aggressive behaviour - should be able to peck two, or even three many times as they can now. Having to constantly resummon them, often in the middle of fight, is a bit annoying.
It becomes less and less of a problem with more skills.
At rank 30 each Raven will hit 41 times.
At rank 40 each Raven will hit 51 times.
I tried a more pure summon build and felt it was a bit slow albit very chill to play, like a fishymancer without CE and amp. Then I went with more of a hybrid wolf/fury with summon’s. Much better with a big 2 hand stick and lawbringer on swap (lawl undead/phy immunes).
I go with pure summoner and Bear Shockwave, Yes it is slow but i can keep everything stuned and my summons clear them quite easy with lvl 31 summons. Still need to find Reapers Toll to my merc, currently using Obidience.
bear with shockwave summoner is GG. if this was Indiana Jones, you have chosen wisely
yeah lol
I would like an aoe hit tbh like a cleave in Werebear form or Summon bear to have a cleave.
So like a regular shockwave summoner, but we now have other summons, right? Man, if only someone thought of this like 20 years ago…
I like any time a not Act 2 merc is suggested, but an Act 1 Merc using Edge RW is doing almost no damage. You are going to have massive problems anytime you come across Phys immune mobs.
no, sorry. I have literally play tested all the variants. Act 1 merc with fire and edge allows you to kill any setup of mobs with any immunities.(also gives you a ranged attacker which this build needs) between the runewords spirit and edge (with fire merc) you will have every type of damage and with the thorns you will be reflecting huge amounts of damage back at attackers. With the heart of wolverine out you get more bonus to atk rating and damage, versus say concentration or might or other aura options.
playtest it if you don’t believe me. There is no better variants of setup with a more positive net outcome than this. excluding max BIS in gear. this is the very best budget build.
I have and I don’t.
It is not the best setup, not even for budget.
Sounds fun with Act 1 merc i m thinking ACT 3 merc with shield which grants aura bonus damage to pets!
which shield is giving an aura to pets?
mmk then so what is better then? whats your best budget build summoner?
Well as far as mercs go, drop the act 1 merc with Edge and grab an act 5 frenzy barb with Lawbringer until you find a Reaper’s Toll to put on an Act 2 might merc.
for clarification, the runeword “lawbringer” is 43 and requires (amn,Lem,Ko) that is much higher runes and has fire and cold damage only. (comparatively EDGE is level 25 (Tir,Tal,Amn) and has 300+% damage to undead and demons, poison damage, life steal and prevent monster heal with plus to attributes. many more useful properties with the EDGE. Also increases atk speed significantly by 35% making the act 1 merc have much faster rate of fire and it hits groups of enemies with fire)Plus having a ranged attacker mob helps “round the build”) the sanctuary aura is kinda lame as it slows your clear speeds by being defensive.(it pushes some undead mobs away, also only effects undead)With the high HP of the druid summons it isn’t necessary to have defensive auras. In fact they slow/hamper the build.
In terms of efficiency and level to item ratio’s again there is no better budget build. Not to be confrontational, but to expand on this for all druids. I truly have done the playtests and math comparisons as well as actual playtesting of every conceivable allocation of skills, gear and mercs.
Sorry but you can say you play tested as much as you want.
But when you skip over things like the entire reason for Lawbringer, the Decrepify proc and make it out to be a high level rune word. I just can’t take you seriously.